


The Undone and The Divine

by ThereAreNoLines



Category: Pretty Little Liars, Warehouse 13
Genre: Angst, Crossover, F/F, Mystery, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:30:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThereAreNoLines/pseuds/ThereAreNoLines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanna Marin is transient, until she's caught up in something much bigger than herself. Suddenly forced from her life of anonymity and into a world of 'endless wonder' as everyone keeps calling it, her definition of life changes, especially after she meets Spencer Wells, a fellow agent troubled by the death of her mother and the mystery surrounding her own recent disappearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pretty Words

"Do you know why you're here, Miss Marin?" The cool, flat voice cut through the daze caused by her head injury – she could still feel the blood in her hair. Sticky, matting it down. She winced as she raised her hand to touch it, not even wanting to see what she looked like. He dress was torn in several places, her skin raw and bruised in places from the tumble she'd taken down the stairs. If she had to guess, she'd say she looked like she'd gotten into a fight with Mecha-Jesus and lost – big time. (Jesus because God hadn't been kind to her…well, ever. And Mecha because she was pretty sure she could take regular Jesus in a fight, all things considered.)

"'Cuz I'm a spy." Even in her state, Hanna could tell that her words were slurred, the sounds fumbling on her lips. "And you're gonna put me away, right?" She locked eyes with the woman in front of her. She looked young, with red hair, an electric blue streak going down the side. Odd, for someone official that was probably going to lock her up. "I've been…really bad…"

"She didn't see a medic, did she?" The woman – well, girl, kind of – said, as she looked to her left. Hanna jumped as she noticed the suit standing there, her chair scraping against the floor and causing an embarrassingly loud noise. "…right. Well, go find…someone." She waved him away, turning to look directly at Hanna.

"You should really look into getting that second head removed." Hanna said, unable to hold her own head up. It wasn't so much that her head ached – actually, she felt quite pleasant. Strange, and floaty, almost, like this was a dream – and for all she knew, it was. She propped her chin up in her hand, finally, not liking how the room was spinning. "Do you make out with yourself?"

Her only response was a roll of her eyes as she sat down across from Hanna, putting her into slightly better focus. "Let's start with what you remember, if anything."

"I…" Hanna swallowed down a particularly strong wave of nausea as the worst parts of the head injury began to strike her. But so did the strongest parts of her memory. The tarnished gold sewing needle. The dead models. The dress she had stolen. The catastrophic runway showdown. The swift moving young woman with the dark eyes that pierced her soul as she plucked the needle from her hands and kept running…now that was a good memory. "So gorgeous."

And with that, her forehead thunked down against the cold metal table and everything went dark.

 

"Fuck." Was the first word Hanna managed to get out clearly through her parched lips, and this was way before she managed to open her eyes. Her head ached beyond anything she'd ever felt before. (Except for maybe the hangover after her prom, that was. That had been a doozy.) "Fuck!" She repeated, as she tried to peel her eyes open through the haze, her eyelids heavy, only to be exposed to a blinding white light. She audibly cried out, throwing her arms in front of her eyes to make the feeling that they were being assaulted by many tiny knives stop.

"If you'd like to make that a trifecta, darling, I won't mind." Hanna jumped at the sound of another voice. It was smooth, British and unfamiliar, although something about it was rather soothing. She finally managed to peel her eyes open without an inordinate amount of pain, shifting to the side as best she could. Perched – that was the only way to describe it – in the chair beside her bed was a raven haired woman she had never met before. She was writing in a leather bound notebook, with a ballpoint pen that looked like it cost more than a month's rent. The woman's dark eyes briefly darted up to meet hers, and Hanna was physically startled by how wise they looked. That alone confused her perception of the woman's age – she looked wise beyond her years, which couldn't number more than sixty in total, and perhaps even less than that, although, again, she couldn't be sure of it.

"Where the fuck am I?" Hanna mumbled, rubbing at her eyes, dry and sore. The gentle beeping of the nearby monitor grated at her aching head, and after a moment of shifting around, motions that took a tremendous amount of her energy, she reached over and pulled the cord out of the wall.

"You're in the hospital in Pierre, South Dakota." The woman said, looking rather amused at what Hanna had done. "Claudia, the woman that you spoke with earlier, had some business to attend to, and I volunteered to make sure you were alright."

"Alright…pretty relative term." Hanna groaned, reaching for a nearby hand mirror and wincing as she brought it up to examine her features. There was a thin cut along her left cheek bone, and stitches just under her hairline on the right side of her head. There were dark circles under her eyes, and the pallor of her skin looked like winter on a below freezing sort of day. "Oh my God, I look like shit." She sighed heavily, flopping back down against the pillow, wincing as the resultant swell in her headache. "…who the hell are you, anyway?"

"My name is Helena." She looked like a Helena. An old soul, with an old-fashioned name. It made sense, in a situation that made no sense to Hanna at all, and it made her feel oddly better. "Actually, between you and I, it's HG Wells."

Why did that sound familiar? "Like…Tom Cruise and War of the Worlds, HG Wells?" Hanna asked drowsily.

"Oh dear Lord." Helena sighed heavily, bringing her palm to her face for an instant. "You're a Pete."

"What's a Pete?"

Another heavy sigh from Helena, but also a bit of mild amusement. "You'll find out soon enough, darling. And for the record, just…call me Helena. Now, if I understand correctly, you're Hanna Marin. You're twenty one years old, you've been off the grid since you were sixteen, operating under various aliases – "

"Whoa, lady, stop right there, I don't know what you're talking about." Hanna cut her off, tensing beneath the sheet, prepared to tear the IV out of her arm and run. How did they know about that? She'd buried her past well, or so she had thought. She couldn't run again. She was sick of starting over.

"Relax, Miss Marin." Helena said, reaching over, laying a cold hand on her shoulder. "We're not here to prosecute you. Actually, you can look at all of this as a second chance, really."

"Who's we?" Hanna said, not relaxing at all, shrugging away from her touch.

"Claudia, the woman you met before, myself, a few others…and my daughter, Spencer…you met her first, although you might not remember due to the bump you took on the head." Helena explained.

"No, I…I remember." Hanna said softly. She could see the resemblance, even though the girl she had seen before – Spencer, another name that just made so much sense – was little more than a blur in her damaged memory. It was definitely there, though, as she looked at Helena, the dark eyes, the shape of her face, the dashing smile…she wasn't sure how she knew that, however. "Not well, but I do. She was a bit…short with me." Hanna said, as the fact occurred to her, recalling the strange combination of intense dislike and intrigue she'd felt when confronted by her…not to mention the strange rush after the catastrophe on the runway, although she supposed that could be attributed to her head wound.

Helena nodded. "Yes, she's…been a bit off since her mother died this spring. Very sudden, unexpected. It's thrown her for a loop. All of us, really." The woman's wise expression took on a veneer of deep sadness. Just looking at her made Hanna's chest hurt. The ensuing silence was heavy and hard to swallow, and Hanna was only relieved when she began to speak again. "The point is, Hanna, we're here to help you, and…I'm afraid if you reject our help, you'll be in hands of people that will care about all of those things I was beginning to read."

"…so you're saying that I don't have a choice." Hanna said, after a moment, hating the feeling of being trapped into something.

'Oh, you have every choice, darling." Helena replied. "You could run again, right now, I wouldn't stop you. Or you could go into custody with the men in suits that will surely come for you in a few days' time. Or you could wait out your recovery in peace, and come with us. It won't be the life that you're used to, but I think you'll find yourself…uniquely suited to it. At any rate, it is your choice what to do from here on in."

"I…" Hanna winced at a particularly painful spike in her headache. "Would one of those choices include sleeping?" She asked, after a moment.

Helena chuckled a bit. "You can sleep. I'll make sure none of those mysterious men in suits come and steal you away."

"…comforting." Hanna said, after a long pause, settling down against the bed, her eyelids already starting to feel heavy with exhaustion and the energy sapping power of her injuries. Maybe this was all some weird dream, induced by the blow she'd taken to her head, and she'd wake up…well, shit she'd wake up in a jail cell. But she'd gotten out of quite a few before, she would manage. She always had. She reached up to trace the necklace hanging around her neck, relieved to find that it was still there, like it had always been.

"Mother?" Hanna's eyes had just closed when a new voice, although not so unfamiliar, sounded through the room. She forced them open, her gaze instantly focusing on the young woman at the door. She was dressed mostly in black, or at least in dark colors without many nuances. Her boots went all the way up to her knees, her legs appearing miles long. Her tan coat was cut close to her body as if it had been tailored for her, wrapping each of her curves expertly. She tugged at gloves, pulling her hair away from her face, which was another story in and of itself. Her eyes were as dark and piercing as she remembered, although cast with more annoyance than she had seen. "Claudia needs you."

"Oh, right, yes." Helena said, gathering up her things. Hanna didn't look away from Spencer until her gaze cut to her, almost embarrassed to be caught looking, though she wasn't sure why. "Of course. I trust you'll stay here with Hanna?'

"If I must." The reply was courteous, but cutting, and Hanna wasn't sure what she had done to deserve the other woman's disdain when they'd only been aware of each other for a day or two.

"Excellent." Hanna watched as Helena hugged her daughter, a sudden pang of nostalgia ringing through her like church bells. "I'll just be off, then, I'll see you later darling." Helena briefly touched her face, and there was a long moment where nothing happened, a moment that Hanna could only assume was some sort of mother-daughter telepathy that she couldn't tap into.

The air of the room changed as Helena stepped out, and Spencer was there with her, alone. "Look, I don't want you thinking we're…friends or anything. You assisted me with one of my investigations, and I'm grateful, but…there are things that need to remain buried. Understand?"

"I…alright?" Well, that meant either Spencer had jumped to conclusions, or part of her memory was missing and she'd probably done something really stupid, which wasn't entirely out of the realm of possibility. "You're the boss."

"Technically, the term is senior agent, but thank you." There was a hint of a smile that Hanna didn't understand, but it was comforting to know that Spencer was probably not all business, like she seemed to be. But it faded, and Hanna was left feeling like she'd eaten the last cookie, or something.

"I'm…gonna go to sleep now." Hanna said as she rolled away from Spencer, before the scrutiny and her stone cold demeanor could affect her further. However, as her head hit the pillow, a fragment of memory came crashing back to her, seizing her entire consciousness as she was engulfed by it.

_"God, baby…" Hanna had never heard her voice so high, but then again, she'd never taken on a lover this talented. She pulled tighter at her wavy brown locks, both desperate for something to hold onto, and urging her on. "Fuck…"_

_She glanced down just as the other girl looked up, locking eyes. "Ask for it…" She purred, her deep, dark brown eyes glistening with mischief…_

Hanna's eyes snapped open. Well, shit.

 

Spencer winced as she sipped at the amber liquid in her glass. She had never been too much of a drinker, since Leena never kept liquor in the kitchen because of Pete, and even her brief stint in college hadn't afforded her many opportunities. Still, she felt it was appropriate, for someone in her situation, to sit at a bar and drink until she had forgotten her melancholy, or was acutely aware of it. She was beginning to lean towards the latter, and in fact didn't understand how such a dismal atmosphere and sour drinks could make her feel the least bit better.

Her mind drifted over the past two days, afraid to examine anything beyond that, as much as this most recent experience hadn't been good for her. Upstaged in what she did best by a common thief? She wouldn't pretend that hadn't hurt her ego – clearly, she was practically face down on the bar with half a glass of whiskey in her hand. There was no pretending anymore. She was losing her touch. Even if she had fulfilled the mission in the end, she hadn't been without help…and that scared her.

Anyone else who had been through what she had been through in the past few months would have called it a good retrieval, but not her. It wasn't anyone's fault but her own, really, she couldn't attribute her drive for perfection to anyone else but herself. Her parents had been wonderful, the rest of her family – her mismatched, insane family – just as much. So why couldn't she be as carefree as them? And more importantly, why were relationships such a mystery to her?

She'd arrived in L.A. far too late to begin her investigation into Charles Frederick Worth's sewing needle, so a little light hearted fun hadn't seemed like a bad idea to her at the time, forgetting how awful casual sex made her feel, of course. She went to the bar at the hotel where the fashion show she needed to be at was taking place, and lo and behold, she'd caught the eye of some blonde at the bar, with her dress too short and her heels too tall. Not normally her type, but there was something about the smolder buried in her deep blue eyes that she couldn't resist. She could remember the conversation perfectly, much to her regret now, as it played over and over in her head.

_"I was beginning to wonder when you'd come over here." The blonde raised a martini glass to her lips, and Spencer almost missed the glint in her eyes as she so intensely focused on her mouth, and what she'd rather she be doing with it. "You couldn't keep your eyes off me. Still can't."_

_"I'm an art appraiser." She pulled the lie out of thin air. "And you're one of the finest works of art I've ever laid eyes on." This wasn't a lie, even if the line was a bit cheesy. She'd been admiring her for the better part of an hour now, her eyes wandering along the lines of her body, imagining what she'd do to every inch of it._

_"Sure you're not some sort of pick up artist?" The blonde arched an eyebrow as she finished her martini, setting it down, fingertips playing with the stirrer as she turned to face her. "Or an angler? Because that was some line there."_

_"Can't blame a girl for trying." Spencer said, brushing off the comment easily, although her abruptness more than stung – she didn't take losing the upper hand very easily. "I'm more talented in other areas, though, it would be shame to write me off for such a small thing."_

_"Talents, hmm?" The blonde leaned closer, and while Spencer managed to keep a straight face, it was all she could do to keep from kissing her right there. Her lips looked like they would fit so perfectly against hers, against every part of her, and her impatience was getting the best of her._

_"Well, like I said, I'm an…art appraiser." It was the best way to describe her unusual profession. "I majored in comparative literature for two years in college. And I have five years of combat training." She paused to sip at her drink. "Kenpo, you might not have heard of it."_

_To Spencer's surprise, recognition flickered in her blue eyes. She locked onto that for a moment, struggling not to get lost in the suddenly realized intricacies of her eyes. "You're not as unique as you think you are." She said softly, reaching out and with the lightest of touches, running her fingertip along the plunging neckline of her dress, causing her breath to catch in her chest. "I know enough about that to know that you must be very flexible…"_

_"Well, give me the chance to prove it to you." Spencer closed the distance just enough so that she brushed her lips against Hanna's ear as she discreetly slipped one of her room keys down the front of her dress, hand lingering against her breast for a moment before she pulled back, slipping off the tall bar stool. Her previous embarrassment over losing the upper hand earlier was all but forgotten as she strode away, smirking as she felt the blonde's gaze rest on her retreating back._

Even though she wholeheartedly regretted it, considering the events that had followed, and the ones about to take place, Spencer couldn't help but smirk as she recalled the rest of the night. Disregarding all reactions and complications it had caused since then…the sex had been hot. And she'd needed it, even if it had been grating at her ever since. A couple of hours of nothing but skin to skin contact, tangled limbs under the sheets, curse words uttered in hushed tones with mouths pressed to necks, and other places. It had been an escape, a blessing, which, even though it had faded to a curse in the end, had made her feel infinitely better in the moment.

But what had it bought her now? A night in a local dive somewhere in Pierre, where she stared at the worn away wooden bar and contemplated the mistakes she'd made, the people she'd lost, the things she'd been through. Great, Spencer, she thought to herself. Real smart move. This wasn't where she should have been. This wasn't where Spencer Wells, of all people, should have been at that moment.

So why was she there?

It hadn't been hard to sneak away from the hospital. Hanna was in and out of consciousness, and her mother and Claudia were nowhere to be found. One drink. That was all she needed, and then she'd be back before Hanna noticed she was gone. Just one moment of peace. That was one thing even the best parts of her life hadn't afforded her – solitude. There was always someone around, be it her parents, or Artie, or Leena, or Claudia or Pete, or Steve…never had she been able to have an extended period of time solely to herself, which she reasoned was probably the reason why loneliness struck a deep chord within her. She had never learned how to be functionally alone with herself, and her emotions and her memories, reliving the worst, shelving the best.

"Spencer!" The brunette knocked her glass over, spilling whiskey everywhere, startled by the sudden shout of her name from across the bar. She turned around to see Claudia pushing her way towards her, looking furious. Since furious wasn't an expression normally found on Claudia, Spencer could only imagine what had happened in her absence to cause it. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I slipped out for a drink, I don't see what's so wrong about that." Spencer said, keeping her guard up as she dried her hands off on her jacket. "You didn't have to barge in here like this." Having someone who appeared to be her own age hold authority over her was challenging to process, and while she didn't ever mean to disrespect Claudia, sometimes, it just happened.

"You left Hanna alone." Claudia snapped, and Spencer instantly stood to attention. "You were supposed to be watching her to make sure she didn't go anywhere, but you skipped out on her to drink away your problems and now she's gone."

Well, shit. Spencer looked away from her, unable to stand Claudia staring at her with so much anger and disappointment. The thought of letting anyone down made her stomach twist, her chest feel achingly empty. She was better than this. Or, at least, she had used to be. "Claudia, I'm sorry, I didn't think – "

"That's right, you weren't thinking." It was all Spencer could do not to slap the redhead across the face for how much she sounded like her late mother. The memory literally burned her, it hurt so much to think about. "Your mom is already on her trail, so I think we'll be able to catch her, but…" Claudia sat down on Spencer's previously occupied seat. "I'm worried about you. This isn't like you."

You and me both, Claudia. Spencer thought briefly, as she crossed her arms over her chest, still not meeting her gaze. "I'm fine. Really. I just needed a drink, it was a hard case. I'm sure you understand."

"That's not what I…" Claudia sighed, waving the bartender down, waiting until a mug of beer was set down in front of her. "You aren't yourself. And I don't blame you, really, I don't. I get what it's like to lose a parent. And under the circumstances in your case? I'm honestly surprised that you're holding together as well as you are…I think you need to go on leave, just for a bit. To clear your head."

Now it was Spencer's turn to be furious. "You can't possibly – "

"You were kidnapped and held captive for a month." Claudia cut her off. "While you were being held, your mother died. When you finally got back, you dove straight into working, you didn't talk about it, you didn't give yourself any time to heal." She reached out, taking one of Spencer's hands with both of hers. "I care about you, kiddo. And I feel you, okay? I know what it's like to bury yourself in your work and try to ignore it. But it's messing you up. You're not as good as you used to be, and in this line of work, we can't afford that."

Spencer scuffed the tip of her boot against the wooden floor, trying to fight back tears, swallowing the heavy realization that Claudia was right. "Are we done here?" She asked quietly, raising her head when she was sure she wasn't going to cry in front of Claudia, which would have just made the entire situation even worse than it already was.

"Spencer – "

"Are we done here?" Spencer repeated tersely.

Claudia sighed. "Yeah, we are." Spencer began to walk away immediately as she turned towards the bar, her voice distant. "I'll pick up your tab. Just get back to the hospital and wait for your mother and Hanna."

Spencer made it outside before she broke down.

 

"Yeah, one ticket to…" Hanna paused, scanning the roster for which bus was leaving the soonest. "Chicago." She finally settled on. It had been two years since she'd been there, maybe things had changed. No one would remember her, at any rate. And it would be better than staying here with the group of obviously crazy people that she'd stumbled into. "Thanks." She shoved a fake credit card through the window, scurrying away and melting into the masses only after she'd taken it back.

She tucked herself away in a secluded corner of the bus station, propping open a book she'd bought at the book store while she waited for her bus. It was a bit ironic, but when she saw 'The Isle of Dr. Moreau' by HG Wells sitting there on the shelf, she couldn't refuse. An odd choice to find among the smattering of trashy romance and true crime novels, and perhaps it was a bit out of her league, reading wise, but Hanna was a very superstitious person, and she couldn't ignore signs, or at least things that could be perceived as signs.

She read aloud slightly, hearing the words making them seem more real to her. "On February the First 1887, the Lady Vain was lost by collision with a derelict, when…"

"…when about the latitude 1'S. and longitude 107 'W. On January the Fifth, 1888 – that is eleven months and four days after – my uncle, Edward Prendick, a private gentleman…" Hanna jumped as someone began to finish her recitation of the first few lines of the novel. "Need I go on? I can recite the entire introduction from memory, you know."

"…when you said you were HG Wells, I thought you were kidding." Hanna said, closing the book, setting it in her lap as she looked up at the woman. She didn't appear angry to see her there, in fact, she was once again wearing an expression of amusement.

"Well, since the HG Wells everyone knows and loves died in 1946, everyone thinks I'm kidding." Helena replied, easing down on the floor beside Hanna. "There we go. Is this the first time you've read that, then?"

"Yeah, I just…bought it here. For the sake of irony and all that…" Hanna inched away from her. "Look, you said it was my choice whether to stay or go, and I chose to leave, so…I don't really understand why you're still here. Well, why you followed me here."

"Well, you need someone to see you off, don't you?" Helena asked. "And I…I'm afraid I didn't get to talk with you as much as I would have liked."

"Oh, so you're going to convince me that I should stay and go off with you and the punk rock chick and your lovely daughter?" Hanna asked, pulling her knees to her chest. She'd bought clothes after escaping the hospital in a pair of scrubs, nothing much, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, leather jacket…the necklace though, the one she never took off, was still hanging around her neck. "No thanks."

"Oh, I'm not going to try to convince you of anything." Helena said. Hanna was torn between being infuriated at her vagueness or appreciating her quirks. "I'm just interested."

"Yeah, well, there's nothing interesting about me." Hanna brushed her off, resting her chin on her knees, closing her eyes. Just fifteen more minutes and this would all be a bad dream that she could forget about, and move on with her life, well, what she could salvage of it anyway.

"Oh, I beg to differ on that." Helena said. "I did do a bit of reading on you, which I know you'll find infuriatingly invasive, but that's because I think you and I are a lot alike."

Hanna scoffed. "Really?" She asked, looking up at her. "I doubt that. I'm not some two hundred year old – I'm still waiting for an explanation on that, by the way – British badass with a seriously pressed kid and privacy issues. We're nothing alike."

Helena only laughed a little, looking away. "You'd be surprised, darling." Then she fell quiet, and for a second, Hanna thought she was done speaking. But then, just as she'd closed her eyes again, ears tuned to the sound of the announcer, hoping to hear the call to the bus to Chicago, she began again. "Your mother died when you were a child. Your father was never part of the picture – you have very few memories of him. You were moved from home to home until you aged out, and you got chewed up and spit out by the world and had no one looking after you. That's where our similarities start, really." She paused, sighed and shifted, and then began again, giving Hanna very little time to recover from the emotional landmine she'd forced her to put her full weight down on. "You didn't have anyone to turn to. Only yourself. You grew to hate the world for the things it had done to you. You walked among the best and the worst, and then realized how much you hated the world for the things it had done to itself. So you did things to get back at it. Things that were wrong according to the hypocritical and paradoxical set of morals that had been set before you, but seemed to right to you. You were transient. You belonged to no one, only yourself. All of the right you did, and all of the wrong you did, it was all owned by you, and you alone. And as much as you don't regret it, you do. As much as you welcome the solitude, you don't. As much as you relish the fact that you don't have to answer to anyone, you crave the responsibility. You want someone to tell you to stop. You want someone to catch you. You want someone to hold you accountable before you go down in flames and take others with you. You want someone to erase the hate from your veins, and make you believe that even though things are terrible, even though we're all running ourselves into the ground, that there is someone to love, and somewhere you can call home."

Hanna swallowed her words hard, reaching up to wipe at her burning eyes, rubbing them to disguise the fact that they were filling slowly with tears at how cuttingly right Helena had been. "Those are a lot of pretty words." She said, shaking her head, refusing to look at her.

"I know." Helena said, laying her hand on her shoulder. Hanna didn't shrug away. "But those pretty words? They're all the reasons you're not going to get on that bus."

"I'm getting on the damn bus." Hanna said, shaking her head, standing up. "You said I had a choice. And this is my choice. Please leave me alone."

Helena shrugged. "Very well then. I'm driving the dark blue Beemer parked in the back alley, when you come looking for me." She stood and strode away smoothly, leaving Hanna standing there, dumbstruck at her audacity, at her insight.

The overhead announced her bus, and Hanna looked down at the ticket sticking out of the book, clutched in her hands. That was her ticket away from here, away from this nightmare, away from all the unexplained and the too wise for their own good British ladies and their disturbingly attractive yet illusive children. It was her ticket to another life, another fake ID, another one night stand (or ten,) another heist, another breakout, another shady job, a ticket to what would ultimately lead to another ticket. And then another, and then another.

And God, she was sick of looking at those fucking things.

"Dammit." Hanna hissed under her breath, shoving the book in her bag and running off in the direction Helena had disappeared in. She had no idea what she could possibly be getting herself into, only that it was nothing she'd ever experienced before.

And, she realized as she vaulted over an unattended suitcase on her way out the door, that was probably for the best.


	2. Barriers

_Helena had never even considered the possibility that she could go through more pain than she had when she'd lost Christina. As far as she could imagine – and she had a great deal of imagination – she had had already gone through the worst. She had paid her dues, lived with her pain, and later her guilt. Not that the world made much sense, or was at all fair…it was more of the idea that she couldn't ever possibly feel any worse than she did when Christina died. So it didn't matter what sort of chaos the universe created in her life. She could laugh at it all, because it was merely a pittance compared to the truly horrifying things she had experienced._

_She had never been so wrong in all her life._

_It had taken quite a bit of convincing on Myka's part to convince her to consent to another child in the first place. It wasn't that she didn't want another child, another chance at motherhood. It was that she didn't want to lose another child, couldn't lose another child. And, after all, the only way to truly ensure that one won't outlive one's children is to not have any children at all._

_But she could only say 'no' to Myka for so long in the first place, and after a particularly harrowing retrieval, she knew she wanted more with her, even if it came at the price of risking another devastating heartache and the last remaining amount of her sanity. Even if it meant another picture of a little girl, frozen in time, that she carried around in a locket._

_It wasn't long before Myka found a way. To this day, she isn't sure if Spencer's conception is either some strange science or due to an artifact, but either way she's grateful. She had never been able to imagine, back in what she liked to call her first life, that she would ever be able to have a child with a woman she loved, a child of their own. It didn't take long for it to happen either, and she watched with a dizzying combination of wonder and ambivalence as Myka grew with their child. (She was surprisingly calm for a pregnant woman, although some of her more grating personality quirks were, to put it politely, magnified. She bore it with silence. It was the least she could do.)_

_Spencer Jillian Wells was born on April 11th, eight weeks earlier than expected, giving HG a heart attack. It started at two in the morning, when Helena was suddenly roused from her sleep by a panic-stricken Myka, who informed her with very large eyes that something was wrong. It was all a blur to Helena, really, a panic colored blur – how could she have already lost before it had even begun? The ambulance ride was 45 minutes long, each minute simultaneously dragging on and rushing past her. She gripped Myka's hand, knowing she had to be strong for her, but at the same time, knowing that she couldn't._

_She wasn't able to focus on anything other than the paralyzing fear that had seized her. It was only afterwards that she could truly hear the words of the doctors, the paramedics, her friends. Even now, she could hear them, filtered through the panic and the pain._

_"Her blood pressure's rising."_

_"There's a chance her lungs might not be developed."_

_"We'll need to do an emergency C-section."_

_"Prepare yourself."_

_"HG, it's gonna be okay."_

_The only thing she heard at the time wasn't shouted at her, or told to her in a deep official tone by a man a white coat was Myka. "Stay with me." It resonated with her everywhere, even though it was a much more quietly desperate plea, whispered instead of shouted in panic or said assuredly or worriedly with a hand on her shoulder. It was the one thing that could slice through the blanket of her panic and her fear – her love for Myka. It had always been the thing that had saved her and – once – everyone else. She couldn't ignore that now, not even when the fears that had been ingrained in the barest, most basic elements of her humanity for over a hundred years now._

_So she prayed to a God she knew didn't exist, and she dressed in a paper gown and gloves and held Myka's hand until they were in surgery, a prayer all on its own. They had to put her under, but she still whispered words of encouragement to her, pressing her lips to her forehead, head bowed, eyes closed. Penitent. Reverent. She'd be on her knees if it had been allowed. Anything to appease the universe, as illogical as that was…she could not lose Myka or her child, not now and not ever. The notion of God had never seemed more powerful to her until that moment._

_She didn't leave Myka's side once, not even as the child was delivered. The hushed silence that fell over the room was enough to tell her that she'd arrived, but not nearly all she wanted to hear. She spared a glance over the divide, only to see the doctor's retreating backs as they took her away. She clasped Myka's hand to her chest like a candle and kissed her fingertips like she would a saint's feet. Her education, her worldliness, the simple fact that she knew better, it all meant nothing now._

_They had to rush Myka into surgery almost immediately – she still couldn't quite remember the reason, something about membranes separating and something rupturing, it was all a blur. Helena was ushered out before she could protest that she needed to be there, that she had promised Myka._

_She sat in the comfort of her friends for a while, feeling none of it. She wasn't with Myka and wasn't yet ready to confront the harsh realities of her daughter's situation. It was only after Pete – Pete, of all people – convinced her otherwise that she made her way up to the NICU, praying in various ways the whole way there. If the situation hadn't been so dire, she might have found it laughable that the one thing she'd been rejecting ever since she was a little girl was now the only thing she could rely on to keep her from breaking down._

_Helena waited at the window, resting her hands on the cool metal bar that ran along the wall. She could see a cluster of doctors, but nothing else. And then, as though the clouds had parted (clouds made of scrubs) there she was. Her little girl. Much smaller than she'd hoped, and hidden beneath too much plastic and too many tubes, but there she was. Moving. Breathing. Alive._

_She didn't stop praying, though, not until the doctors spotted her and let her inside, once she'd donned scrubs and a facemask. This wasn't at all how she'd pictured meeting her daughter for the first time, cut off from her in the worst ways. She couldn't kiss her forehead, or smooth her hair back or comfort her weak cries by holding her or patting her back. But after the scare she'd given her, Helena didn't mind that the fantasy had been shattered._

_So she pressed her lips to the top of the incubator when no one was looking, reaching through and touching her small hand with her latex covered one. She longed to hold her, but that right belonged to Myka first and foremost, and furthermore, she was too tangled up in tubes to even consider it. Looking at her made her fearful, even after a doctor assured there that there were ways they could help her and she would almost likely make a full recovery. No, it was no longer losing her that she feared the most. It was seeing her surrounded with so much coldness, so much unfeeling technology in her first few hours of life. She needed the arms of her parents. She needed warmth and love. And with each minute that ticked by, she grew increasingly more worried that, as much as being born early was detrimental to her physical health, it was also detrimental to her emotional health. What if the absence of the human contact she should have experienced within the first few minutes of her birth would set precedence for the rest of her life?_

_And so, Helena prayed._

 

"Damn nicer than any place I've ever lived in." Hanna muttered to herself, looking around the room as she stepped inside. Helena had assured her that there would be someone waiting for her as she rushed off somewhere else, but as she walked further into the main room, it appeared to be vacant. Still, it was quaint. A place had never felt as homey to her before, not since her mother's home, and even that, towards the end, that had begun to seem more like a prison or a waiting room rather than a place to live.

She dropped her duffel bag on the floor by her feet. It didn't contain much. Her various identities and the tools needed to craft and maintain them. Her favorite pair of shoes. A DVD copy of her favorite movie, and what clothes she could spare from her apartment – they hadn't had much time, the Feds had caught onto her latest identity, and were pulling up by the building before she'd had five minutes in her closet. The escape had been quite daring, and if she hadn't been a part of the whole thing – involving a neighbor and a fire escape and a cat tossed at an unsuspecting field agent – she might have thought it was cool. (Helena was quite spry for an older woman.) Nevertheless, the loss of much of her belongings once again dampened her mood significantly.

Hanna raised her hand to the warm metal of her necklace, clutching it with ambivalence as she stepped further into the room. "Hello?" She called cautiously, tracing the metal circle, reveling in the familiarity. It would be the only thing to feel familiar to her for a while, she suspected. "Yo…anyone here?" She moved further into the room, pulling her duffel bag along the floor. "If this is some sort of hazing ritual, I'm walking my ass back out that door."

Still nothing. Hanna sighed, setting her bag down on the couch, pulling out the pair of shoes. They were high heels, suede, black with gold embroidery. First pair of heels she'd ever bought instead of stolen, with her first big payday from her first big job. They didn't go with anything, and she hardly ever wore them, but they went everywhere with her, no matter how many times she had changed locations, names or lives. She glanced towards the front door, the foyer, where several pairs of shoes were neatly lined up on a rubber mat, and contemplated putting them there for the barest of instances. But a noise from somewhere back behind her startled her, and she instead dropped them back on the couch, making her way towards she believed to be the kitchen.

"Hello?" She called out quietly, peering around the corner to find the kitchen, as she had suspected. And also as she had suspected, it wasn't vacant. There was an unfamiliar woman leaning over as she combed through the fridge, only her profile visible to Hanna. She was striking, Hanna had to admit that much, although not exactly her type. (Even in the rumpled white button down.) She brushed her hair behind her ear before she disappeared further into the fridge, blocking Hanna's view of her.

"Leave something for the rest of them, Paige, you're not the only person that eats from that fridge." Hanna jumped at the sound of another voice, glancing in its direction. It belonged to a young woman who appeared to be her age, perhaps a year or two older, if anything, with the worst case of doe eyes she'd ever seen. "God, where do you put all of that food after you eat it?" The girl turned away from the sink where she was standing as Paige sat down at the table with a myriad of dishes and an apple that rolled away across the table. "You're too small to be that hungry."

"Maybe it's a Warehouse thing." Paige said, as she dug into something Hanna couldn't identify. "Being around all that juju has infinitely expanded my capacity to eat."

There was a definite blush on the other girl's cheeks, Hanna noticed, but it only lingered for a few seconds. "Yeah, well…" The brunette tossed down a dish cloth on the edge of the sink, reaching forward and grabbing the apple that had rolled across the table. "I'm going to give you a shower in purple goo before you eat me out of house and home." She glanced up as she took a bite, her dark eyes going wider – something Hanna didn't think was possible. "Oh, you're here!" She set the apple down on the table, but appeared to think better of it, setting it out of Paige's reach on top of the fridge. "You must be Hanna. I'm Emily. This is Paige, she's another agent."

"Emily." Hanna repeated as she accepted Emily's vigorous handshaking. The name suited her, and she suited the inn. She had known her for mere seconds and she could already tell she was warm and accepting and loving, no matter what riff raff came waltzing in. The thought of her, the idea of her, made her in equal parts calmer, and more uneasy. "Nice to meet you." She returned Paige's slight head nod, but since it appeared that she wanted to be left alone to eat, she did just that.

"Come on, I have your room all set up." Emily took her hands, both of them, and pulled her out of the kitchen. She let go long enough for Hanna to grab her duffel bag before taking her up the stairs. The top floor was just as warm and homey as the first floor had been, with the added benefit of photographs hanging in the hallway. "I didn't have a lot of time, so I hope it's suitable."

"Yeah, I'm…sure it will be." Hanna said, slowing down behind Emily, eventually stopping in front of a wall of pictures. Some of them were old, black and white, and if it were not with the more recent ones they were hanging with, she would have thought them to be merely art. But every picture was hung with such care that she knew they were all important. "Who are they?" She found herself asking, though she was in no mood to sit through a history lecture.

"Who?" Emily said, as she turned, slowing slightly as she gazed up at the wall. "Oh…this is sort of like our memory wall. People who have left, or…or died." She added the last part shakily. "This is Jack and Rebecca. I never met them, but I heard great stories about them." She indicated a black and white picture. A handsome man had his arm slung around the shoulders of an equally attractive woman. He looked arrogant, she looked adoring but put upon. Hanna could tell she would have liked them.

"That's Steve." She pointed to a picture of a man with a buzzed round head. Hanna could feel his calm demeanor through the picture. He was dressed in leather, leaning against a red Prius and squinting into the sun. "I…I don't know what happened to him actually. I think he might have died, though. Couldn't say from what."

"…comforting." Hanna said, with a sideways look at Emily, before glancing back at the wall. "What about this one?" She asked, reaching up and tapping a framed picture of a darker skinned woman with dark, curly hair, perched on the couch and smiling.

"Oh." Emily's tone pulled Hanna to look back at her, and when she did, she saw it. The resemblance. It wasn't pronounced, it was subtle, it wasn't in the lines of her face, but in her expression, in her eyes. "That's my Aunt Leena. I never met her." An apology was on the tip of Hanna's tongue, but Emily found it in her to keep talking. "She died awhile back, so my mom came here to take over. She didn't change anything, didn't touch anything, so I guess I…I've always felt close to her, even though she died before I was born."

Emily was apparently eager to get off the subject, though, (something Hanna didn't blame her for.) She very quickly indicated the next picture, one of a man with dark hair and a square set jaw, looking off into the middle distance. It looked like an old cinematic poster, but the goofy, crinkly grin on his face once again made him a person Hanna thought she would have liked. "That's Pete…he's a Regent now, just like his mom, so he pops in here from time to time. Not lately, though, not since…"

"Not since she died, right?" Hanna pointed to the last picture. It was obvious who it was. The woman Helena had spoken of with such reverence and sorrow. The mother who the loss of which was clearly effecting Spencer much more than the young woman wanted to admit. The cause of the sense of sadness, of absence that thickly permeated the air whenever she was around anyone who had known her. She was beautiful, Hanna noted, and she seemed happy, at least in the picture. She wasn't looking at the camera, but rather down towards the ground, caught by the camera in mid laugh, brushing her curly hair back. All at once, Hanna understood why the loss had effected them all so dramatically, but was infinitely confused as to why she suddenly missed her intensely, though she'd never known her.

"…right." Emily answered, after a deep melancholic sigh. "Myka. It's been a few months, but it still feels like just yesterday that we heard."

"What happened?" Hanna asked, turning away from the wall. She couldn't look at it anymore. But as she looked at Emily, by the way her face fell and flinched, she realized she'd hit a nerve. "Oh…never mind." She said, shifting her bag onto the other arm. "So…which room is mine?" She asked, moving past her. "This one?" She reached out and touched the doorknob, only to have her arm suddenly yanked back by Emily.

"Don't…that's Spencer's room." Emily warned her, and although it was supposed to dissuade her, she was suddenly struck with an insatiable curiosity to explore the place where the enigmatic Spencer called home. She hardly knew anything about her, only that she was frustratingly attractive and seriously uptight – a dam with a whole flood of issues behind it, straining to break through and flood forth. She could only imagine what her room would look like, and it was hard not to pull out of Emily's grasp and enter anyway. "She barely lets me in there to clean, and she leaves all of her laundry out here in the hall. I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Hell hath no fury like a Warehouse agent scorned." Hanna said under her breath, glancing at the door as Emily led her away. Someday, she'd work her way in there, and maybe get a clue as to what exactly made Spencer tick.

"Here we are." Emily led her two doors down the hallway, pushing it open for her. "This is your room. I hope it's suitable, I didn't have a lot of time."

"Are you kidding?" Hanna asked, glancing back over her shoulder at Emily, before looking back at the room. It was warm in more ways than one, the temperature pleasant against her constantly cold skin, the walls all warm earth tones. It was miles better than the crumbling brick, stained drywall and exposed pipes she'd been exposed to during the past five years. She didn't know what to do with all of it. "It's…it's perfect, thank you." She sank down onto the perfectly made bed, letting her bag rest on the floor.

Emily nodded, looking pleased with herself. "When the rest of your things arrive – if they arrive, the mail service here is rather…spotty – I'll set them up for you."

"Ah…" The pang of losing all of her possessions hit her again. "I don't have anything on the way, but thank you." Hanna sighed again, flopping back down against the bed, staring up at the bare ceiling. It wasn't as though she had put much stock into the things she'd owned before, after all, this wasn't the first time this had happened. It was just that, no matter where she went or who she was pretending to be, having those things there made her feel just that much more at home, though she was living a borrowed life, and had no place being comfortable in it.

"I'll make sure to stop in town and pick up some things for you." Emily said, continuing on before Hanna could raise any protest. "You must be starving, I'll have dinner ready in a few minutes."

"…I'll be alright." Hanna said. "I have to go meet Artie or…something anyway. God knows how I'm going to get there." She sighed, flinching as the jingle of keys was sudden and loud in the room, followed by something hitting the bed by her head.

"You can take my car." Emily said. "It's the silver one out back."

"…is there anything you won't do for…the people that live here?" Hanna asked, reluctant to use the word 'us.'

Emily merely shook her head, before disappearing down the hallway, leading Hanna to wonder if she'd ever get a straight answer from any of them about anything. (It wasn't looking good.)

 

_Helena was frightened by Spencer's appearance sometimes. That was a terrible thing for a mother to feel when looking at her child – it was just that she looked so much like she'd imagined Christina would look like. (Had she been given the chance to grow up, of course.) And it wasn't so much fear of what she looked like, but fear of how it would make her feel, the pain it would dredge up from the dark, murky waters of her memory. (One morning, after a particularly bad night, when Spencer was sixteen and headed off for school, she'd called her Christina. They'd just sort of looked at each other, and went their separate ways, as if nothing had happened. They'd never talked about it since.)_

_Nothing frightened Helena more than seeing Spencer like this though – lifeless, bloodless, pale and cold in a room that was equally pale and cold. She wasn't dead – there was a jarring reminder every second or so in the form of the earsplitting hear monitor. She'd never been so thankful to have a migraine before. But even with that reassurance, watching her was like torture. It was like seeing the aftermath of the attack in France all over again, but this was terrible in its own right._

_Helena felt numb, for a multitude of reasons, even as she held Spencer's hand, wondering if the contact could reach beyond the cold divide that separated them. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what was effecting her so – simply because there were so many things it could be. Her life before being bronzed, the experience of being bronzed, her first true dosage of the real world and how poisonous it really was…even these were valid options._

_Perhaps it was the perceived loss of her only living child. Spencer had been missing for a month, and she would never forget the chill that suddenly settled in her as day after day went by where Spencer didn't return to the bed and breakfast, or answer the many repeated calls to her Farnsworth. No one could tell her what had happened or where she had gone, even after threats and bribery and a number of underhanded maneuvers. Still, she had managed to keep herself sane – barely, and through no fault of her own. It had all been Myka, every bit of it. (Of course, it had been herself that suggested they ask around one last time.)_

_It had been sudden, just like every other change in her life. Sudden and over before she knew what was going on. She had been down the street, closing up an interview while Myka followed another lead. Pebbles danced along the sidewalk before she could feel the vibrations through the thick soles of her boots. The rumbling didn't occur to her until later, when she was sprinting towards the red flash of flame against the grey, pale sky. Ash stained her pale hands as she dug through the rubble, but even as she was dragged away by a fireman and told that there were no survivors, and he was very sorry for her loss, she didn't feel it. It wasn't until she was halfway home, driving on the highway – or not. No, it was not until she was sobbing into her steering wheel with her car half hanging out of the ditch with wet snow beginning to blanket the desolate emptiness around her that she felt the loss of the love of her life and her daughters all at once and it was nothing short of a nuclear bomb exploding in her heart._

_But that had been her one and only breakdown, save for a small exception at the semi-safe return of Spencer the night before. It had only been two weeks since the explosion that had killed Myka, and the subsequent explosion of grief within her – everything should have felt like bundles of raw, exposed nerves. Instead she felt like she was existing in little more than an egg, a barrier keeping everything from her, though when the light shined bright enough, she could still see it looming beyond the thin shell._

_The only thing holding her shell together, was the steady sounds of the heart monitor that assured her that Spencer was much more alive than she'd looked. There were signs of trauma, the doctors had said, but she was a fighter, and she'd come through just fine. No one could tell her specifically what she'd been through while she was gone, though, and to be quite honest, Helena wasn't so keen to know the details of the tortures her daughter had gone through – she knew too much about everything else anyway. And, as she sat there, holding her hand and praying, holding the same useless vigil she had twenty two years ago, she briefly wondered what the point of all of this was. Surely not the universe punishing her for James Macpherson's death – he was slime. Surely Spencer had not done enough to warrant this – kidnapping, imprisonment, coma, the news of the tragic death of her mother upon waking. Spencer wasn't her. Spencer was good and she tried her hardest. And Myka had practically bathed in virtue. No, it could only be her, in her evil, time traveling, society defying ways. Caught in the eye of the storm of her grief and her guilt, all she could do was sit there and wait, praying to a God that had never listened to her, and hold her daughter's hand, the invasive noise of the monitor the soundtrack to her despair._

_After a time – she could not say how long it had been – Spencer's hand twitched in hers, and then gripped it – it wasn't a reflex. Helena lifted her eyes, sucking in air before holding her breath to see if this was it. Everything stood still for a moment that dragged on, though it was only a fraction of a second, a heartbeat, before her dark, long lashed eyes flickered open, only to close against the brightness of the light. "Mama?" She gasped, in a quiet, raspy, broken voice, and it was all Helena could do to not sob along with her._

_"You're alright, darling…I'm here." She whispered, raising Spencer's hand to her mouth, kissing it. "I'm right here, you're safe now."_

_"I don't…what?" Spencer turned her head as wildly as she could, the frequency of the noises from the monitor increasing slightly – she'd always been able to tell when her daughter was panicking, but she had never before been able to hear it. "Mama, what's going on? She gripped her hand tightly, turning her eyes to her as she was finally able to open them. She never wanted to see that look in her daughter's eyes again – the look of uncertainty, pain, and sheer terror. She had seen it once before – when she was barely an hour old – and ensconced in a plastic hell of an incubator. Never again._

_"Darling, Spencer, you've been through an ordeal, please…" Helena urged her, gently guiding her back down against the bed, swallowing hard. "Just rest. You'll be alright."_

_Spencer slackened a little, turning her face against the pillow as the monitor slowed to a slow but erratic rhythm. What was left of Helena's heart broke a little more as she reached for her again, closing her hand around her wrist, as her breathing came in short little pants. "Where's mother?" She finally got out._

_Where's mother? Where was Myka indeed. Helena had never come up with a way to explain death that didn't hurt. Not when Christina was a child, and not when she died. Not when Spencer was young, and had asked her, and certainly not now. Death - where did it bottom out to? She couldn't bear the thought of Myka's soul being lost to the world forever, for it was so lovely, yet there was no logical argument to suggest that anything else had happened. She could maybe reason herself into believing, even just a little, in reincarnation – if that was the case, then Myka was somewhere in the start of her next great life, in a station better than even the life she had led here. But even that was too unbelievable. Same with the idea that she was dining with God somewhere – she was too sweet for hell, any version of it. But what did that leave? Another unexplained part of the universe, except this time, it wasn't one she could ever hope to beat, or solve, no matter how many times she tried._

_The train of thought had assaulted her so strongly, that she had been pulled from her body long enough to lose control. She all at once realized she was crying and that Spencer had pushed herself up just enough so that she awkwardly wrap one arm around her, the other arm a slave to the IV. As she began to tearfully recount the story, she could only recall one thought; she had been entirely, entirely wrong to assume that there was no more pain left in the universe for her._

_And try as she might, she would never be able to pray it away._

 

"Stop, Dickens!" Spencer snapped at the ferret that was rattling around in its cage as she sank down onto the bed. She felt a twinge of guilt at the subsequent silence, but there were bigger things to worry about. Namely, not collapsing into a puddle of tears. She had tried to spend as little time as possible in this house to avoid being swept up in the tidal wave of grief that had taken over everyone else, but it seemed this time, she wouldn't be so lucky. Someone – probably Emily, with all the best intentions, though they had backfired miserably – had left her mother's throw pillow propped gently up against her own. Seeing it was like being shot by a sniper – she didn't know what had hit her until it was already too late.

Spencer at first made the conscious decision to ignore it, but that lasted all of two minutes, after staring at the ceiling got old. She got up and paced, fidgeted with an invention that she had tried to start six months ago, but had never gotten off the ground with. (The inventing was best left to Claudia, or her mother, unfortunately. Not her.) Finally, she threw it down, hearing it shatter somewhere unseen. She pushed her hands through her hair, trying to settle down, trying to breathe through it, but it was quickly becoming apparent to her, in the rise of her pulse, the difficulty in drawing breath, the tightness in her muscles, that that wasn't going to work. She was just going to have to give in, and let it take her over, and though that logically was the best course of action, she hated it.

She sank down onto the bed after a minute, dragging the pillow over into her lap, tracing the embroidery, the threads. She had started using it in the few years leading up to her death, something about an old injury bothering her back, or too much artifact juju or something. Spencer had often come across it in the oddest of places – in the car, on the kitchen counter, on a shelf in the warehouse. Once they had even left it in her dorm room in New York, and she'd had to FedEx it back. Regardless of these instances, it hardly left her side, and she'd come to see it as an extension of her. It didn't occur to her that it was still around, since her mother was no longer around. Seeing it just lying there, innocuously, an inanimate object with no idea of its destructive power, was disarming in more ways than one.

She reached out, brushing her fingertips against it, before just grabbing it, pulling it to her chest, doubling over around it, just holding on, clinging to it like she never had to her mother, taking in the feel of the fabric, the scent of her. It wasn't that bad, until it hit her suddenly that this was the closest she'd ever be to her again, that and the picture hanging in the hallway. Before she knew it, sobs were piling up in the back of her throat, hot and thick, and it was all she could do not to let them out. She had fought for years to keep from letting them out, and though she knew that in this case, and every case, it wasn't good for her, it was still a hard habit to break.

"Spencer?" Shit. Shit. The sudden appearance of her mother wasn't conducive to her continued stasis. Spencer struggled to draw a deep breath, and even knowing that crumbling was inevitable, with a stiff upper lip she raised her gaze to meet her mother's.

The reaction was instantaneous. Helena's face fell, and she rushed to Spencer's side, draping an arm around her shoulders, reaching up to brush her hair with her fingertips. "Darling, what's the matter?" She asked, though both of them knew she didn't have to.

"…do you know what the last thing I said to mom was?" The tears spilled into her voice before they fell from her eyes, making her words thick and sharp and barely intelligible. Somehow, though, Helena seemed to understand – she always did. She nodded briefly, keeping up her rhythm, stroking her hair. It was the one thing that almost always calmed her down, but this was one of those times where nothing, not even the most surefire way, would have worked. Nothing could fix this, nothing short of a miracle, because the only thing that would make it better would be bringing her mother back to life. "I told her that I didn't want to be anything like her. That she was…cold…too lost in the details to see that she was losing me…that she had lost me." Spencer clapped her hand over her mouth as the first sob escaped. "I can't take that back now…I can't fix it."

"Shh…" Helena murmured into her hair, pulling her closer. "Your mum loved you so much…so very much. She went to the ends of the earth to try and find you, she did. She gave everything to try and find you, and she knew you loved her in return. She was a smart lady…even if you two bumped heads, she always knew the truth, darling….you have nothing to be afraid of."

I have everything to be afraid of, Spencer thought to herself mournfully. But no words came out, instead, she turned against her mother's shoulder, and cried. But even that wasn't letting it out for her. In fact, every tear that fell, every sob that fell from her mouth was just another weight added to the burden.

 

Toby Cavanaugh had gotten himself in a shitload of trouble.

The black bag over his head was suffocating, but not as much as the realization that his misguided attempt to do something with his life had gone horribly wrong. This wasn't even his fault. He was a pawn in the game, a hatchet man, a lackey – he could lift shit and drive fast and he looked good in a suit, but that was about it. He knew nothing.

Of course, this broad didn't know that.

He gasped for breath as the bag was suddenly ripped off his face, trembling as a gun was instantly leveled at him, straight between the eyes. Tearing his gaze away from it finally, he glanced up at the woman holding it, taking her in. In any other circumstance, she might not have seemed so threatening, with her wildly curly hair and the laugh lines around her eyes. Those eyes were cast in steel, however, as she leaned in close to him.

"So." She said, lowering her voice, dragging up a chair and sitting facing him, never once taking the gun off of him. "How about you tell me why you're after my daughter?"


End file.
